R&B, and Hip Hop Music Video Conventions

As we have chosen the music genre, R&B / Hip Hop. We decided to do some research on R&B and Hip Hop Music Conventions, and why they are important:

R&B/HipHop artists tend to use Performance with hybrid of Narrative and Spectacle as their music video genres:

Performance

In an R&B/HipHop music video, performance is important. This is because this allows them to be recognized which then also markets themselves to their audiences as well as other opportuinites.An example of an R&B Hip Hop music video is by Jennifer Lopez ft. Pitbull:

In this music video, we can see that the mise-en-scene is clearly urban and nightlife which is also an R&B Hip Hop convention. We can also see props such as the cars, the look (make-up, clothing and accesories), and alcohol. This music video is performance based showing a lot of close-ups of the artists as well as long shot to show the artist's choreography.

Narrative

Narrative is often used as a hybrid to make the audience remember the artist's music. This narrative can be inspiring (it can be a reenactment or an abstract version of the artist's previous experience, or a story that can relate to the audience). An example of an R&B Hip Hop music video that has the music video genre of Narrative is by Lil Wayne:

In this music video, we can see that the mise-en-scene is different from the previous example; the location is hospital and alleyway which audience can see as more "sad" feeling rather than partying. The Narrative shots invite people to sympathise with the story. This is effective because the audience will remember the music video.

Our Music Choice

This is our music choice; "I Wanna Be A Star" by J.Reyez, Maribelle Anes, and Traphik. This song is about how the unsigned artists of the song wants to pursue their career and get into the mainstream industry, and how they really want to progress their career into the next stage and gain more audience.

We chose this song, as it is upbeat, fast paced, catchy, and also different genre to take on this year. Emily is going to be the Cinematographer, Ana is going to be the female lead singer and I'm going to be the two male rappers. We have also requested a permission to the artist if we can do his song for our music video project:

Star Study: Kanye West

Kanye West is an american rapper, singer and record producer, born on June 8, 1977. Kanye West was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where he lived with his parents until his parents divorced when he was around three years old, and he and his mother moved to Chicago, Illinois.

Kanye West attended Chicago State University where he produced music for locaql artists. Through this, he later gained fame by producing hit singles in the music genre Hip Hop and R&B for artists such as Jay Z, Alicia Keys, John Legend and more.

1996

Kanye West gained the opportunity to produce tracks for Chicago rapper, Grav for his debut album. Although, the album did not attract much attention, in 1998 to 1999 Kanye West's career grew and gaining more opportunities like producing for higher profile and well known artists such as Jermaine Dupry, Foxy Brown and more. After gaining much success as a producer, Kanye West decided to take on the role of a solo artist and as a rapper. However, he struggled to find a record label to make a contract with him. This ended when his verse on Jay-Z's album 'The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse' allowed him to sign to the same record label.

2004-05

Kanye West's success progressed even further when he was involved in a near fatal car crash while driving home from recording studio. This influenced him to write songs, that became his first single, which also won the Source's Award for Best Music video in 2004.

In 2005, MTV aired All Eyes on Kanye West in which Kanye spoke out against the Homophobia in the Hip Hop industry. He claims that hip hop has been discriminating the gay community; he even admitted that he has been discriminating that community until he found out that one of his cousins is gay in which he said that this was his 'turning point'. He said: "This is my cousin. I love him and I've been discriminating against gays"

After gaining much success with his albums, Kanye West decided to launch his own clothing line, Pastelle Clothing line in spring 2006.

Contemporary
Now, Kanye West has a total of 47 awards and 147 nominations from different award ceremonies, including the Grammys. He has a total of 6 albums from 2004 to 2011.